Saturday, July 26, 2014

There I was, watching a rerun of one of the original Star Trek episodes - That Which Survives. It costarred Lee Meriwether as a deadly alien vixen. As I was watching, I was struck by the irony that not only was the episode called That Which Survives but Star Trek is that which survives. Then again it also a case of camel toe which survives. In this instance it was a case of CT in triplicate. How they got away broadcasting that in the 1960s is beyond me.

...we are ready or one, and I mean it - well I sort of mean it anyway. A zombie apocalypse may indeed be farfetched, even impossible, but a major shit hits the fan (SHTF) or the end of the world
as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) situation seems to be not all that improbable considering the current state of the world and of our nation. There are several catastrophic situations in which we could find ourselves, a few examples being: a set of worldwide and fairly well-coordinated
chemical or biological or radiological attacks by a terrorist group, a
third world war or another great
depression. It seems we may be headed toward all three. Then there are natural events. A tsunami, and earthquake, major flood and storm damage are all quite possible. While remote, there is also the
possibility of the earth being hit by a huge meteor. That does not seem all
that likely but is possible. Speaking of natural events, from space, how about
the earth being hit by a coronal mass ejection? Sure you know what that is, or don't you? It's
when the sun throws off huge amounts of mass and energy in a huge solar flare. There was a lot of talk about one of those going to hit
us two summers ago, the Blogosphere was abuzz with it. Thing is, it missed us.

We may have been very lucky that particular solar flare missed us even though it, like a similar solar blast back in 1859, was a moderate one. The scientific types
at NASA and others seem to be claiming that had that one hit us two summers ago, we
may have faced outages in the electric grid for months and that full repair of
the damage may have taken years. They use as an example, a similar solar event called the Carrington Event. During that solar storm,
from August 29 to at least September 3, 1859, there were northern
hemisphere disruptions of telegraph service (basically the electric grid of
that era). Telegraph operators were reportedly shocked by current off of the telegraph lines that had been powered of and some telegraphs supposedly still could send messages even though they had been disconnected from their power supply (source). Imagine that much electricity added to our power grid and what that surge could do to the grid let alone our household and business electronic devices. During that solar storm, there were also major disruptions of the earth's ionosphere. Both the
Aurora Borealis and the southern aurora were seen far beyond where they are
normally witnessed. The Aurora Borealis, for instance, was seen as far south as
Cuba and Hawaii.

It is believed that if we were hit with a solar flare like
that (or greater) it would cause major damage to the electric grid and would cause
power outages lasting months if not longer. I can tell you, it was nasty living
for a few days (or a bit more) without power after Tropical Storm Sandy.
Think of what it would be like with intermittent or no electric power for months. People would
be out of work because their jobs would have no power source. Food production
and deliveries would halt or at the very least would slow to a crawl. Water, certainly at
least clean water, would be a rarity in many locations. Security systems, 911
call centers, would all be without power. Hospitals and medical centers would
maybe have minimal power by way of generators. Homes would be with heat in many cases. It would be dark at night, no street lights, no businesses lit up, no lights in your home except maybe candlelight.The rats (four and two legged) would crawl out of
their holes and be looking to get whatever they could take. It possibly would be
anarchy. Yeah, sure, the police would do all they could do and the military
would probably be called in to assist, or at least the National Guard would be out tromping about. They, the government types, would
get almost all of any available fuel for generators. You and I likely would get none. There
would be rationing of everything. Obama's law allowing for seizures, from U.S. Citizens without probable cause or due process, of just
about anything imaginable would go into effect. You
remember that law - the one that also allows him to put you in a FEMA camp for your own protection and the one he said would never be necessary. When did that law go
into effect - think about it.

Yes folks, it would certainly be TEOTWAWKI, at least
temporarily.Think about how bad it
could be and ask yourselves- are you
prepared! Prepared for what you may wonder and I say just prepared to survive with the basics like shelter, food, water and the ability to defend yourselves.
Really, if a solar flare could disrupt, maybe even completely fry our
electrical grids for months, what would life be like. Would you be willing to depend up, maybe even begging, the government to allow you to depend upon it? My bet would be that a months long power outage would result in something
between daily riots by the unscrupulous and unprepared to FEMA rounding up and disarming citizens and
then putting them in emergency government camps for the duration, of course - all for their own good (I hope you feel the sarcasm in those last few words). Camp life would
not be for me or mine. There is no way the government is prepared for something like this and no way they could do better at protecting me and mine than me and mine doing it ourselves. So, I’d prefer to take my chances with the rioters. Thus, even if the
Zombie Apocalypse never hits, at my place we are kind of sort of ready for
something like that anyway (at least at this time of year, I don't know about winter but I think we could make due then too). No, we are not preppers - not in the classic sense –
but we are prepared at least somewhat.

Oh, I guess I should also mention, this could all amount to a hill of beans (or a few large cans of them that I have in storage) and leave us prepared for nothing catastrophic at all. In that event, I'll get to feed the family on the cheap for a good while once I decide to open our emergency rations. Beyond that, Brendan and I can shoot a lot at the range too once I crack open the ammo cache. Either way, we win.

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